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Book Review: TENTH OF DECEMBER

February 1, 2013
George Saunders

By George Saunders

Reviewed by Dennis Bianchi

George Saunders' name carries a great deal of weight in literary circles, especially his collections of short stories.  His examination of American life in his hundreds of stories is frequently compared to Raymond Carver, but that might be a bit of a stretch as Carver is spoken of almost mythically.  He has been referred to as a modern Mark Twain, and that might be more than a stretch with the exception of his ability to amuse the reader while writing about very serious matters.  But when Mr. Saunders comes out with a new collection and all the big media outlets begin prompting readers to buy this book the temptation is too great to not buy it, to not be part of a book referred to as his "most honest, accessible and moving collection yet."  The stories vary and I enjoyed many of them, but I found the hype to be misleading.   

There are two stories, "Victory Lap," which begins the collection, and "Tenth of December," which is last, that have positive and redeeming conclusions, particularly the title piece.  In "Victory Lap" a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a vexing choice: Does the boy ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act?  And in the "Tenth of December"  a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful and anxiety-filled morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is.  The story is a frank examination of  imagination, memory, and loss.

But the other stories are much darker, much more depressing.  "Puppy" is a story that can aggravate, even infuriate and leaves the reader in that state of mind.  I hesitated about continuing with the others.  And when I came to "Escape from Spiderhead" I did put the book down for several days.  I'm not a fan of science fiction, and even if I did enjoy it I believe I would have found this story beyond comprehension.  It read like a 1960s drug-induced nightmare.

I talked myself into reading a few more, one of the pleasures and benefits of a collection of short stories, and found more urban, modern angst.  Mr. Saunders may be the literary salon darling of the current age but he left me with the feeling that he is an acquired taste, although at time he can be funny at times, even hilarious.  The story "Al Roosten" is written from the perspective of a man who lives most of his life in a delusion of self-worth and cleverness, but always returns in his mind to the many times he refers to as "ass fries."  And "Exhortation" is a managerial memo that slowly creeps into a diatribe that reveals way too much about what the memo-writer really feels,  resulting in several laugh-out-loud moments.  But on the whole I found much of the book to be too experimental and depressing for my tastes.  The title piece, however, is a jewel, but it speaks volumes that the focus of the high-light story is a man dying of cancer.  It was selected as one of the year's "Best Short Stories of 2012."